Former IRS official Lois Lerner testifying to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last May. She cited the Fifth Amendment at a congressional hearing yesterday.

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A former Internal Revenue Service official who declined to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing the Fifth Amendment, gave a full interview to the Justice Department, her lawyer said.

That’s raising questions among Republican lawmakers, who wonder whether her choice to talk to Justice reflects a lack of concern about the DOJ probe. They also question the propriety of letting her avoid questions by lawmakers when she is answering DOJ’s.

The comments by Lois Lerner‘s attorney “cast further doubt on the seriousness of the Justice Department’s so-called investigation of IRS targeting, as well as the legal basis of Ms. Lerner’s refusal to testify before Congress,” said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for committee Republicans. “There is a clear contradiction between refusing to testify based on a supposed fear of prosecution and talking to the prosecutors.”

In a press conference Wednesday, lawyer William Taylor III said Ms. Lerner had given a lengthy interview to Justice Department prosecutors within the last six months, as part of the agency’s investigation into IRS targeting of conservative tea-party groups for burdensome special scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status.

Some legal experts said it can be risky to expose a client to Justice Department interviews without a grant of immunity. Ms. Lerner’s lawyers said she got no immunity from DOJ.

Her lawyers decided to let her talk to DOJ prosecutors because they have “every confidence” that they are fair-minded and haven’t prejudged the facts, Mr. Taylor said. GOP committee members, by contrast, intended only to “vilify” Ms. Lerner, he said.

Some legal experts said they found the circumstances puzzling.

“It does strike me as a little odd,” said George Thomas III, a Rutgers law professor who’s an expert on criminal procedure. “One explanation is the one given by her lawyer. The other, darker explanation is that she and her lawyer think the DOJ is not interested in a serious investigation of the IRS treatment of these tax exempt groups.”

But a prominent white-collar defense lawyer, Robert Luskin of Patton Boggs, said he did the same thing in the face of a highly-partisan congressional probe into the Whitewater matter during the Clinton administration.

“Our view was that the DOJ was genuinely and sincerely interested in an honest and thorough investigation,” while a GOP-led congressional panel wasn’t, said Mr. Luskin. So his client “testified without condition to DOJ and took the Fifth with respect to the committee.”

One frequent concern for witnesses appearing before hostile congressional committees: Lawmakers can set perjury traps for them, hoping to trip them up. Mr. Taylor said that wasn’t a concern for Ms. Lerner.

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